Memory Stick Question

[killerkatana75]

First off, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but you guys have helped me b4 and i didnt know where else to look...... When i transfer a vid from my camcorder to pc the quality drops alot, so i would think that this is because i am going from a tape ( analog) to pc. so i want to buy a 512mb memory stick...anyone know how much it can hold time wise? 30 minutes? 60 minutes?

[alsyed]

well, if i'm correct, dv avi is 13GB an hour, 512MB is 1/2 GB, so 60minutes / 26..... you could fit about 2m20sec on that

[killerkatana75]

so basically the memory stick is only for pics, and now i bought a digital camcorder, a dvd burner a dvd player, and im stuck with low quality videos...wow this sucks, wish i knew this 800 dollars ago LOL

[canadateck]

I dont understand what a memory stick has to do with a DVD burner?
You want to make DVD from these Videos you transfered?
If you convert them to so somthing like Divx then Maybe you could get an Hour or so on the Memory stick.


Tell us what you want to do with all this new stuff.

[ebenton]

I'm not sure what the memory stick has to do with it either. Don't most digital camcorders use miniDV?
In any case, you can always play back your video from your camera and hook it up to a video capture card. As long as you're not trying to capture video with some old 4 gigabyte hard drive, you should be OK.
If you don't have a capture card, do some research and find one. Some of them are not very expensive.

[killerkatana75]

Ok my bad here is what i did... i bought a samsung sc-d353 camcorder, a pioneer dvd burner and a jvc dvd player, my goal was to make movies with the cam corder of my 2 yr old daughter and then burn them to dvds, i have also tried svcd and the quaility is the same.... am i missing something? i know there has to be a way of recording a video and then burning and keeping a high quality, i have a 120 gig hard drive and a 2.8 processor in a dell pc... i have never heard of a capture card..is this what im missing?

oh also i am using the pinnacle studio program to capture from camcorder to pc

[canadateck]

How are you getting the Video on your computer?

[ebenton]

If you are can "capture from camcorder to pc" with Pinnacle Studio, you must have some sort of capture card. Are there any video input jacks on the back of your PC? Does it only use firewire? I don't get it.

Just as a side note, you are never going to get any better quality video on your burned DVD than what it was when you recorded it originally. Burning a DVD does not magically improve the quality of your video.

You ought to be able to use whatever connection you are using for Pinnacle to get the original video on your hard drive. Once it is there, there are a myriad of programs which you can use to edit and burn a DVD. Pinnacle is one of them. There are others. Check the tools list on this site.

[killerkatana75]

getting it to pc by usb, the camcorder has ie334? firewire i think, but i dont think my pc has it...... well when i plug the camcorder staight to the tv set, it looks fine and when i saved a video to pc instaed of burning it, it looked bad, ( low quality,)

[ebenton]

When you plug the camcorder into your PC, is Pinnacle Studio the only software that fires up? Doesn't Windows XP ask you what you want to do? I'm pretty sure that XP comes with some program that will let you put the file on your hard drive. (Windows Media 9 Capture, Moviemaker, etc. etc.) I'm not sure how well any of these work with just USB input wihout a capture card, but if Pinnacle can see it, so should other programs.
All that being said, a video capture card is still a damn good idea.

[killerkatana75]

you know i never really tried to wait, i usually start up pinnacle and then turn on camcorder, let me try to open camcorder with something else...i looked at capture cards at best buy web site, but it looks like they come with dvd burning software also which i dont need, unless i return the pinnacle i already bought..


ok i just turned on cam, then went to windows movie maker, i captured 1 minute of video, the picture looked good on pc screen nice and clear, but when i saved it and opened it back up with real player, it looked crappy again

[MOVIEGEEK]

Are you saving in WMV or DV-AVI?
Use DV-AVI and capture using firewire,if you need a firewire card they are only $30US.

[ebenton]

I can't help you much with quality issues. Somebody else will have to jump in here.

[MpegEncoder]

Copy your video using firewire. Most call it "capture", but that's not really true with digital video. It's a direct transfer from the camcorder using firewire and an application like WinDV. There is NO quality reduction this way.

From there you have to convert to mpeg and author your DVD.

Also, like MOVIEGEEK says, if you don't have a firewire interface they're cheap and you need one.

[Diablo2011]

I use ULead VS8. This program has a 'quality' preview setting. I always select the BEST preview quality playback. I have noticed that the quality on my screen is not as sharp as the DVD video I have completed. If I recall correctly, there is a difference between a 'tv monitor' and a computer monitor when it comes to viewing.

I also render my video into a HQ MPeg video (8K briterate). I do not use the video encoder board (sony giga pocket encoder board) since it is only compatible with Sony software that specifically uses it.

Also, when rendering a DV AVI to DVD format, always use the higher quality rendering. It takes longer, but the picture quality is EXCELLENT once burned to a DVD.

[MpegEncoder]

I also render my video into a HQ MPeg video (8K briterate).

I assume you mean "8000kbps" or "8Mbps"?

[Diablo2011]

Yes. 8000kbps.

[Richard_G]

getting it to pc by usb,

I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this. The USB port on a DV camcorder is to transfer stills and low quality, webcam type video. That is why your results look crap, because they are! No matter what bitrate you encode at, it will always be higher than your source files.

You need a IEEE 1394 Firewire card in your computer so you can use that to transfer decent quality video from the camcorder to pc.

[MpegEncoder]

getting it to pc by usb,

I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this.

I guess you don't read all the posts before making comments.

[Richard_G]

Alright, so I didn't read all of the posts fully. BUT, until he can transfer decent quality video over Firewire, everything else is irrelevant.

[MpegEncoder]

Alright, so I didn't read all of the posts fully. BUT, until he can transfer decent quality video over Firewire, everything else is irrelevant.

I agree. That's what I told him.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Alright, so I didn't read all of the posts fully. BUT, until he can transfer decent quality video over Firewire, everything else is irrelevant.

I agree. That's what I told him.

Me too.

[killerkatana75]

LOL when i signed on today i didnt expect so many replies, I just ordered a Firewire card and cables, so when that gets here i will post if it helps...and I looked a best buy web site..60$ for the two, i got them on pricewatch.com for 21 dollars......Thank for everyones help

[killerkatana75]

Ok I got the firewire card and cable today, hooked them up and the quality is alot better, but not perfect, Myabe this is because im going from a mini tape on my camcorder to the pc?


My camcorder is a samsungsc-d353, it records the little tapes and has a memory stick slot............. Any thoughts?

also im using pinnacle to capture and burn with

[MOVIEGEEK]

What problems are you having?
Did you play the DVD on your tv?

[killerkatana75]

Yes i did, i captured the vid using the new firewire, and burnt to a dvd, played on tv and it was better, but kinda grainy, not bad, just not the dvd quality im used to with , like rented movies or something, i thought it might be my camcorder, i was 300 bucks , but the cheapest one best buy had, its only 2 weeks old

[RMaddog]

http://www.ikor-design.com/ikor-design/product_info.php?products_id=5241Maybe you should look at getting a firewire card for your PC that way you can get rid of the capture option. That should improve your quality issue. The link I included is for a card that is $6.25 should fit in your budget for much better quality.

[RMaddog]

Opps sorry just read you post where you got one sorry

[killerkatana75]

I have a firewire card just got it today and installed it today b4 i burnt this last dvd....LOL we are on at the same time, No problems it ok

[killerkatana75]

Well if no body has any ideas i can live with the quality its at now, no biggie, i was just expecting high quality